Liberty Unchained

I have been working on putting together a manual on how to beat traffic / speeding tickets here in Washington using proper civil process that addresses the flaws that I see in the manuals I reviewed a while back ( Beat the System, Pay No Ticket, Case Dismissed ). While the systems I reviewed should work due to the fact that they attack the evidence brought against you, they are flawed in that they still require you to take time out of your day to go into court and rely on you not having a corrupt judge…and I aim to remedy those flaws.

I had figured on waiting to test everything out until I was finished with the manual by going out and getting myself a speeding ticket.

However, it seems that my wife, in her rush to get to a birthday party, went out and got one for us…so I will be testing things out here sooner than I had anticipated.

While this is, in a way, a good thing, I know that my wife lacks the understanding of the system to avoid making the same mistakes that most everyone makes when they are stopped by a cop. She will likely answer his questions, provide him with her “license and registration”, and sign the ticket without noting that she is doing so only under threat, duress, and coercion. Of course, none of those things should be a big deal as they should all be able to be remedied by placing the proper information into ones initial civil response.

And yes, you can respond to a “ticket” with an “answer” or “answer and counterclaim” rather than simply putting a checkmark somewhere and signing the ticket.

Here in Washington, speeding tickets are “infractions”, which are simply civil law suits wearing odd clothing designed to get people to give up their rights.

So, I guess I may have a few of my writings finished up a bit earlier than anticipated as we cannot really afford to be doing indentured servitude at this point in time…and I don’t much like that sort of thing even if we were in a position to work a bunch of extra hours for doing something that some men and women don’t like…but which harmed no one.

Yesterday, I had a meeting with the principal of the school that I am putting one of my children into.

At that meeting, we had an extra lady from the district office there, purportedly to help if there was any question as to what was going on.

While we spoke at length and I covered a bit of purportedly new ground for them, including the fact that neither school district regulations nor the WAC is generally applicable law, the meeting made little to no progress. Three things were still claimed to be requirements in order for my child to attend:

1. A birth certificate
2. A filled out immunization waiver
3. A medical waiver

Other things were still wanted, and the lady from the district went over the enrollment form piece by piece to try and convince me of why I should really fill out all of the information that was wanted, particularly the racial discrimination pieces.

After a while though, it became clear that my initial thoughts were correct and the “requirements” are only requirements and not obligations. You see, a requirement is something that must be done in order for something else to happen. For example, they are required to get certain information in order to receive funding. This is not the same thing as me being obligated to provide them with requested information…and typically they can get such requirements waived by showing that they really tried to get the “required” information.

At the end of the meeting, it was decided that I need to speak with the superintendent of the local school district to address the three outstanding matters and they suggested that I needed to call and schedule an appointment. Being me, I noted that if they were refusing to allow my child to attend school, then the onus is upon them to contact me and request a meeting…which they agreed to. Not a big deal, but it rubs me the wrong way to be told that I have to do something because someone else cannot prove a claim.

Anywise, the superintendent was quite prompt and I agreed to meet with him and the principal again this morning…a meeting which I have just returned from.

Going in, I figured that either we would resolve things or I would be looking at the long, painful process of going through our court system…not a big deal, but still not something I am too interested in doing.

This mornings meeting went better than I had expected.

When I asked what law requires all people to have a birth certificate and pointed out that people are born every day without one, that issue was dropped. Clearly one cannot be obliged to provide something that not everyone is obliged to have.

While the liability waiver is understandable, when I pointed out that even if I was some crazy that would provide them with emergency contact information ( I did ) and then try to sue them when they called the given number, asked for the given people, and someone showed up and claimed to be the one called…that they would have been exhibiting good faith and any suit filed against them would be dismissed, that issue was dropped as well.

Oddly, they were most adamant about the immunization form, and I could tell from the superintendents body language and words that I would need to file suit in order to get my child into the school without it.

With that in mind, I took another look at it and realized that all he was asking for was for me to fill out one boxed section ( a box in a legal form limits anything within to being a contained item with no relevance to those things outside of it…this is why a traffic ticket generally contains a box around the “I will show up in court” statement and signature ) that needed only a check mark, a signature, and a date…with no extra verbiage about “penalty of perjory”, “I do hereby certify”, etc.

Since it was clearly not a contract, I checked both the personal and religious exemption pieces ( they are the same thing…our personal beliefs are, in reality, our religion…no matter how much those running the so called state would like us to believe differently ), scrawled my mark, wrote in the date, and handed back the otherwise blank form.

One odd ( though typical ) thing about the entire affair was the way that the superintendent tried to turn the immunization requirement back upon me…pretending that if I did not like it, I would have to prove it was not required. Under our form of law, if something is demanded ( a vaccination paper ), then the one demanding it must prove the right to do so.

Were I to have decided that I wanted to fight the matter, I would have requested a written statement ( not just the highlighted copy of a particular WAC page ) from him stating plainly that my child is no allowed in school until such a paper is provided. If he refused ( he probably would have refused ), then I would have simply needed to show up with my child on the first day of school and have them turn us away. At that point, they would be violating the right of my child to attend school. If I simply took their word on the matter and never showed up with my child, then I would have no right to sue…as I would be failing to try. ( look up hoodwinked )

So, now my child will be in the public school and the sum of the information provided on their forms with signatures amounts to a single checkmark, a date, and my scribble.

I did provide all reasonable information in my own manner with my own words and terms:

• Contact information
• An emergency contact
• A few random facts to help any teacher know a little about my child up front

You can do these things if you put your mind to them, learn not to argue, and keep your eye on the ball ( demand proof of claim…without arguing ).

No matter how large the institution, keep in mind that you are dealing with people, be polite but firm, and you can do things that most people consider impossible.

Admittedly, I don’t much like the idea of my child going to the public school system, but I am thinking that with some extra instruction outside of school combined with a close eye on what is being done in school, things will go decently…and if they do not, there is no registration contract signed by me to establish that they have some right to force me to keep my child there.

At the very end, the principal did claim that she was registering my child…but I let that slide as she didn’t seem too versed in law and failed to understand that she has no power to sign a registration contract for me. Now if she wants to enter in a bunch of information and call it a registration…good and well. But such a thing will never hold any weight in court if challenged.

Oh, and the wife was happy that my “crazy idea” worked out pretty much as I said it would.

— addendum —

Don’t get me wrong, both the principal and the district superintendent were pleasant people and I hold no ill will towards either. My contest lies with those men and women that call themselves the state and claim they can force us to do whatever they please.

It is important to keep these things in mind if you go the route I just went. Be rational. Learn to be informative by asking questions. Learn to instruct by stating things so obviously true that they cannot be denied. Learn to agree upon proof of claim. And most of all, be civil and keep in mind that you are dealing with real people who, like most of us, were brought up in the system and have never even considered that the system itself may not be one of right.

My verbiage can be a bit acidic at times and it may even sound as if I despise anyone who works for the government. Such is simply not true. One of my most cherished friends and many people in my family do now or have worked for government agencies of various forms. All think that they are doing the right thing…and all of them are good people. You might well run into the occasional thug, but so far in my refusal to comply with officals, that seems to happen a lot more at the local city level than it does at the local school level.

Once the meeting with my daughters soon to be school principal was arranged, I figured that I had a couple of options:

• Take a day or two out of my busy schedule to hit the Olympia law library and dig up case law from the appellate and supreme courts here in Washington
• Review and decipher the convoluted moral mess we call the Washington Administrative Code
• Keep working on my various projects and rely on a couple of simple principles to get me through it.

The point of digging up appellate and supreme court decisions from Washington courts would be to show up and provide bonafide proof that there is absolutely no requirement in our system of law for anyone to give out a bunch of information or sign a registration contract. When you go into a district court, you bring higher court rulings to make the district court do what you require.

The point of hashing through the WAC ( again ) is that it is not called “Code” for nothing. It is far better to go to the enacting legislation than it is to read that smelly pile of gibberish. Of course, there can not be any enacting legislation created by the “Secretary of Education” as there is no lawful grant of power for that office to make laws which apply to the general population.

Anything “enacted” by the Secretary of Education can only apply to one of the following two groups:

1. those working in the education framework
2. those who sign registration contracts with the education framework.

Even if I go through it and show that what I say is true, most people will still not be able to see it because they have been trained not to.

Beside the mentioned problems, both would be taking an adversarial stance…and I have no wish to take such a stance. Instead, I will be taking the third option and agreeing with all claims made, upon the condition that such claims be proven to my satisfaction.

You see, when some government official walks up to you and claims, “You must do X, Y, and Z”, rather than disagree ( the first requirement for a lawsuit ), you should simply agree upon proof of claim. Doing so shows good faith on your part while leaving the burden of proof in theirs. Of course, you need to be able to tell what real proof is…and to do that, one need look no further than the constitutions.

Now, I don’t have much faith in the constitutions ( federal or state ) because I never signed them and I don’t really believe that other people can sign them in my stead. But, let us leave that aside and pretend that both the state and federal constitutions are valid and binding upon both the general populace and those who call themselves government.

Looking closely, one finds that only one group can create law…and that group is not “Federal and State executive branch agencies” or even “The executive of the state or federal government”. It turns out ( don’t laugh ) that only the legislature can create law. And what is more, for a legislatively created law to be valid, it must not violate the constitutions ( state or federal here in washington ).

So, my “crazy” plan is quite simple. Offer to do all that is claimed to be required as soon as the valid contract between me and the department of education is presented or as soon as the ( seemingly missing ) part of the constitution of washington granting general law making power to the secretary of education is shown to me. Those are the only two valid ways that the department of education could make me do anything, provided of course that the constitution is valid…which those calling themselves “the state” must pretend in order to hold up the illusion that they have any right to tell us what to do. Well, they could hoodwink me…but I think they have already failed there.

Pretty simple stuff really, but somehow we never learned such things from the secretary of educations minions…go figure.

The harder part is knowing how to hold their feet to the fire should they decide to put things to the test. To do such a thing, one needs to know what court ( if any ) to bring suit in and what cause(s) of action to bring suit under.

I must have been sleeping in my american law classes as somehow I missed being taught how to go about suing unruly officials who abuse their status under color of law…oh right, I was not asleep…there simply is no such law. Silly me. But maybe I picked up such knowledge elsewhere…who knows?

Stay tuned for the (possible) conclusion tomorrow afternoon. Personally I would like to be done with the matter as I have a life to live…but I certainly am not going to lie down.

Well, I definitely felt that yesterdays happenings were a bit too smooth, though I decided to take things at face value and post anywise.

As it turns out, I received a call from the principal of the school today wanting to set up a meeting to discuss a few things. She was a polite enough woman and seemed sincere, so I agreed to come in and speak with her on those things she spoke of.

The first, of course, is the vaccination myth. Because there is an agency rule stating that all “children” must have a particular form filed as to their immunization status ( signed of course by a “parent” ), she seems to believe that I must sign such a form.

In reality, the WAC she referred to is nothing more than a coded message stating that all enrolled children must have the stated form filed and signed by either a parent or one whom acts instead of the parent. ( the wording comes from the included definition of parent…which is required in order to allow us “in loco perentis” types to sign…since the state knows that it is the parent of every child whom has been issued a birth certificate )

It even notes in the same Washington Administrative Code that was quoted to me that the agency only has power to establish public policy ( a thing which is very different from public law ). The only ways for an agency to legally enforce something upon a man, woman, or child are to (a) rely on their ignorance and willingness to cooperate out of fear or (b) get them to sign a contract agreeing to do what the agency wants ( in this case, a registration/enrollment form).

The second concern, of course, is the fact that I did not sign the contract agreeing to have my child in school during prescribed times on prescribed dates. Without that contract, there is nothing they can do should I decide to take a two week vacation with my children in the middle of the year. Look closely at the law and you will see that the school is obligated to provide an education to any whom wants one, but it has no authority to impose one without a contract.

The last issue, which I think is perhaps the largest one, is that I have not furnished a “birth certificate”. The only need for that particular document ( alluded to above ) is because it is what establishes the presumption that each child is property of the so called state.

Let us consider a maxim of law: “Ignorance of the Law is no excuse.”

Clearly, if statute law applied to everyone, then everyone would automatically be ignorant of the law…unless they could somehow memorize millions of laws and know immediately when they are changed. Since that would be a farce, let us consider something a bit off the beaten path:

What if our constitutions were treated as law? They are relatively short documents which anyone could understand quite well with a bit of thought. Since it is claimed by the men and women calling themselves the state that the constitution of washington is what gives them the power to do what they do, then we can hold them to that. Either they respect the law or they are outlaws. For the sake of argument, I will assume that they respect the law.

Can anyone find anyplace in the Constitution of Washington noting that any and all rules of administrative agencies are law? I couldn’t.

Is there a prohibition against the obligation of contracts? ( forced contracts ) Certainly.

If only the legislature can make law, and any law it makes must fall within the scope of its law making power ( defined in the constitution of washington ), then is a law that violates the constitution law? No.

If only the legislature can make law, and someone working for an administrative agency writes a rule for said agency, is it law? No.

So how can the school claim that a vaccination form is required? Because it is only valid to registered/enrolled children. Without that contract, there is no requirement.

The reason that they can claim compulsory attendance is exactly the same.

And, of course, that contract is also the reason for the birth certificate requirement.

Since I have not registered my child, there is only one party here with an obligation, and that is the people running the school. Our constitution requires that the common schools make themselves available to educate our children. It does not say “unless some administrator somewhere decides to write up a form and the parent or entity in place of a parent refuses to sign”.

As my child can walk, talk, and has a heartbeat, clearly my child was born. I can neither confirm nor deny her being “birth”ed into the corporate state, but I have no duty to do so.

As the school has no cause to believe that my child has a communicable disease, the school has no cause to require proof of anything concerning vaccinations.

And lastly, as those calling themselves the school have no contract with me to bring my child before them on appointed days at appointed times, there can be no requirement of attendance.

Of course, I am not going to argue the point. If they wish to make a claim, then I shall simply ask them to prove their claim, reminding them that acting without proof may well put them in violation of the constitutional requirement for them to provide education to _all_ of the public.

Fun stuff. I should know where things are going next in a weeks time.

My wife and I do not see eye to eye on the whole public school situation, but we have a daughter that is of the right age.

As a compromise, I decided to let her go to school provided that I could do so without registering her.

Now, a lot of people I know tell me that one simply must register their children to be allowed to take them to school. “Everybody” knows that in order to put your children in school, you must:

• Fill out the registration form the school gives you
• Fill out the immunization form the school gives you
• Fill out all other documentation that the school gives you.

Of course, my name is not “everybody” and I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any such person…so I decided to use what I know and put it to the test.

What do I know?

Well, for starters, I know that the United States Constitution prohibits the obligation of contracts in Article 1 section 10:

“No State shall enter into any Treaty, Alliance, or Confederation; grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal; coin Money; emit Bills of Credit; make any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts; pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility.”

So, there can be no law requiring a contract or preventing one from being made. That is a start.

I also know that The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land in the state of Washington as it states as much in Article I Section 2 of the Constitution of Washington.

I also know that the common schools ( which includes the public schools ) are obliged to provide education for all children residing within the borders of washington ( Sections 1 and 2 of Article 9 of the Constitution of Washington ).

Now, the forms provided list the numbers of various statutes which each document claims require one to do one thing or another. And if you look the statutes up, you will probably think that the documents are correct…until you understand two simple things that I happen to know:

1. Any “law” which contradicts the state or federal constitution is no law at all. It is actually called a nullity in law and can be used to do nothing more than make people think they must do something. Both the immunization and registration forms cannot be right because they would violate the federal ( and thus state ) constitution against obligation of contracts as well as the state constitution which obliges schools to educate children.
2. If it requires a signature to be valid, it is likely a contract. All of the documents that I was provided were contracts. They made an offer, had a consideration, had a timeframe, and required agreement. If anything within them was required by law, then no signature would be required.

So, taking these couple of simple ideas, here is what I did:

• For each document, I wrote up a simple one page letter providing what information I am willing to provide, using my own terminology.
• I stapled each letter to each of their official documents.
• I took the packet to the school, gave it to the one in charge of registration, noted that I gave all of the information I was willing to provide, gave her a chance to read it over, and asked when I would find out who my childs teacher is and have a chance to meet.

She looked it all over, noted that it looked good, and told me that I should shortly receive a date and time to come meet the teacher.

And when I noted that my response to the vaccination document should be responded to via post if it needed a response, she noted that it did not and that there really is no requirement.

For the curious, here is the key part of what I wrote for that particular item:

“I will gladly provide a ‘certified’ immunization statement once:

• It is positively proven that a common school can exclude a child simply because her parents have failed to file such a statement.
• It is positively established that the superintendent of public education can create law which is applicable to the general population rather than regulations which are only applicable to the schools.

Satisfactory proof shall consist of validated documents tracing the powers claimed to be exercised over the People of Washington from the Constitution of Washington to any statute that is claimed to be a public law in this state.

Exclusion of my daughter from the common schools without proving the right to do so shall constitute both a plain violation of Article IX Section 1 of the constitution and possibly a trespass against the rights of my daughter as well.”

Time to prepare all responses? One hour.

The result?

My daughter will be going to the public school and I will not have any contract with the school agreeing to do what those running it want me to do. This means that unlike most people around here, the school cannot drag me into court if my daughter stays at home or skips school.

When the rubber meets the road, “School Registration” is a contract. It is the contract that is used to do all kinds of things to people and force them to have their kids to school at a specified time, on specified days, etc. The schools were established to provide a place for children to be educated. There is NO requirement that one must take ones children to them…unless of course you registered them with the school.

One last word: None of the papers I provided had my signature on them. None.

Food for thought…

And when I get a bit more time, I will define a few words that have very different legal meanings than most people might believe. Those words are “must”, “shall”, and “register”.

My first AC article!

I just recently got my first Associated Content article published, titled “If you want to find a good, competent lawyer, perhaps you should consider learning a bit about law”.

Of course, anyone who can create complete sentences can write articles for AC, but it was kind of fun going through the entire process and I will likely continue to do so as I come up with random thoughts and the time to put them down on paper.

I have already submitted another article unrelated to law, but am thinking that my next law related article might be an overview of how the civil lawsuit process is initiated in Washington and what the factual requirements are for one to be brought against someone as that will tie in nicely with the research that I am currently doing.

Today I spent working on creating my very first Squidoo Lens.

A very interesting concept that I may start using as I finish out groups of law related posts from here on out.

Postings will be a bit sparse over these next couple of days as I am moving to a new posting and study schedule. My next few posts will concern the systems’ views on what our law is and where it came from as well as my critique of the official line and some pieces of specific law concerning Washington State Civil process.

I just finished setting up a new blog to help me keep my study of law separated from my study of marketing, sales, and copy writing.

Going forwards, all such posts will be at my new Advertising in theCrater blog.

Within a few days I should have content related to that moved over to the other blog so that this one will focus primarily on my study of law and process.

This is a continuation of “Selling items for free - The Trial Begins“.

Two weeks after I put the ad up:

• 350+ ad views ( not even in a good category for getting views )
• 18 responses to the ad ( just over 5% )
• 1 responder who used the method in my report ( just over 5% of responders )

From the number of advertisement views, I think the title worked well.

From the lack of responses, my copy writing appears to be lacking. I think it needs:

• At least one testimonial from a satisfied customer.
• More focus on the benefits of playing WoW for free as well as the benefits of the system I put together to let people play for free
• Expansion upon why it is not a scam with a way for people to verify that for themselves.

From the lack of people trying the method, either very few believe it could work or very few lack the ability to make use of it. Since I can do nothing about the 2nd, I will focus on addressing the first by doing some rewording and removing one piece that really doesn’t belong.

My first goal is to get the ad to pay to keep itself up for another month. That is just about taken care of and one more brave soul will do the trick.

My second goal with this experiment is to see if I can double both the number of responses and the number of responders who give the method a try. That would let the ad pay for itself to stay up for another month and put a bit of cash into my pocket…helping me to put food on the table and refine the ad further.

Updates to both the ad and the manual will be posted in 3 days time to have the same amount of time both ways.

Coming up next: Experiment in Selling for Free #2 - A bookstore where you read first and pay only if you like what you have read.

I have seen a few people discussing and asking about how to go about advertising their eCrater store on the competitions web sites and figured I would write up a quick guide covering a few ways to do so without breaking any kind of rule or raising any red flags.

The result is “Advertising Your eCrater Store With eBay“, inspired by a report I picked up a while back called “Auction Cash Classified” as well as a number of other resources and a bit of thought.

Feel free to grab a copy and provide any feedback below.